A former Mormon has lifted the lid on the church’s bizarre ‘baptisms for the dead’ – revealing the temple sent her to a cemetery to take pictures of gravestones as a kid and then forced her to participate in a ceremony for the deceased.
Alyssa Grenfell, 31, who now works as an assistant principle in Austin, Texas, was raised in a ‘devout Mormon family’ in Utah, but decided to leave the ‘controlling religion’ in 2017.
She has since dedicated her life to helping others ‘navigate their own way out of the LDS church’ – releasing her own ‘guide’ called How to Leave the Mormon Church, while also becoming a viral social media star for sharing her experiences online.
Most recently, Alyssa spoke out about a ‘creepy’ process that saw the group baptize people who have passed away – even if they weren’t members of the religion before their death.
In a video shared to her YouTube channel last week, where she has more than 85,000 subscribers, Alyssa announced: ‘The Mormon church is baptizing your dead relatives.’
She explained that members of the religion believe that ‘everyone must be baptized by the proper Mormon authority’ to move on to ‘Spirit Paradise’ when they pass away.
‘Essentially, when someone passes away, if they haven’t had the chance to receive a Mormon baptism, they’re not saved,’ she said.
‘So Mormons take the names of those who have not been baptized and take them to the LDS temple.
‘They also believe that it’s up to the person to accept or reject the baptism on the other side.
‘That’s why Mormons have no qualms about baptizing basically everybody against their will because they think everyone should have the chance to accept or reject it, and that the choice is left to them once the practice is complete.’
Alyssa explained that when someone living would get baptized, the priest would also baptize anywhere between five and 15 dead people at the same time.
And for each deceased person, the living person who is getting baptized must be dunked into the water, which meant they were sometimes going under ‘over and over again’ in quick succession.
Hellbound and Down 